Ursula Meyer, head of Graduate Acting at UC San Diego, recounts the gifts of life with a creative mother and the clear path to teaching that opened before her. When she and her husband found themselves on the path to adoption, a conversation with a theatre friend led them to their child. Through years of teaching and single parenting while her actor husband was on the road to the moment her child came out as transgender, Ursula's story affirms, as Shakespeare said, "There is no jewel in the world so prized as a mother's love".

Ursula's Ted Talk: Shakespeare Plays With Words

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eseWDHXkvPw

UCSD Department of Theatre and Dance

https://theatre.ucsd.edu/

Adoption Support Resources:

https://resolve.org/

Trans Family Support

https://thecentersd.org/

https://transfamilysos.org/

Ursula's Book Recs:

The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Parents and Professionals by Stephanie Brill and Rachel Pepper

The Transgender Teen by Stephanie Brill and Lisa Kenney

This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel

Found in Transition by Paria Hassouri

She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan

Conundrum by Jan Morris

Actor, educator and single mom Mercedes Herrero shares her story of suddenly and unexpectedly wanting a child in her early 40s, and the creative way she solved that as a single woman. (Hint: in any company of actors, there is usually one gent willing to help a lady out...) After several years of taking her baby with her to auditions, spending most of her Broadway paycheck on childcare, and surrounding herself with loving actor friends willing to help, Mercedes' single-parenting life took a bittersweet turn. When her aging parents needed care, she left New York at the height of her career and returned home. This is a beautiful episode just in time for the holidays that includes the miracle birth of an extraordinary child, a family's love and acceptance, and one woman's unwavering faith to live life fully, fiercely and unapologetically.

For more on Mercedes:

www.mercedesherrero.com

To find amazing female playwrights over 40:

www.honorrollplaywrights.org

Kate Rose Reynolds is an actor, director, producer and about to be a mama. At 8 months pregnant, she feels she's in tech week all the time, and shares how being an actor has prepared her for the bittersweet ephemerality of pregnancy and new motherhood. She gets honest about her fears of finding the work/mothering balance, even though she herself is a child of the theatre, and her wishes for her child as s/he grows up in this world. She vows to read Shakespeare's entire canon to the baby and teach the little one some excellent Elizabethan playground insults.

More about Kate:

katerosereynolds.com

@krred

loudfridge.com

@loudfridgetheatre